Spiritualization?

Last updated on: May 19, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Stephen Finlan (Problems With Atonement, 20-29) offers a sixfold typology of “spiritualization” of sacrifice that includes “moralizing interpretation of ritual,” “internalizing,” the use of ritual imagery for non-ritual realities, at the extreme an outright “rejection of ritual.” What he identifies as “spiritualization” is certainly present in both Jewish and Christian writers. But the whole analysis assumes an unstated definition of sacrifice that detaches it from it canonical (and, I would argue, historical) settings. He spends several pages, for instance, examining... Read more

Do Chickens Dream of Electric Fields?

Last updated on: May 19, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Austin Stewart of Iowa State may have designed a way to fool chickens into believing they are free range. “Second Livestock” offers “a free-range world wherein chickens stuck in tiny cages in factories would be able to, at least mentally, live out their lives wandering an endless field.” We have the technology: “By pairing a virtual reality headset with a modified yoga ball, attendees of Stewart’s presentations can experience first-hand what it would be like to be a caged chicken living... Read more

New Song

Last updated on: May 19, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

When the Lamb appears in heaven, the angels begin singing a new song (Revelation 5:9). What’s new about it? Why a new song? The phrase “new song” is used six times in Psalms (33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1), and once in Isaiah (42:10). The position of these Psalms in the Psalter is significant. The Psalms that speak of a new song are distributed in three different sections of the Psalter. Two are in Book 1, two in Book 4, and... Read more

Pousser le gros homme?

Last updated on: May 17, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

A trolley careens out of control. If you push the fat man in front of the trolley, you can save the lives of five people, including two children, but the fat man will die. What do you do? The typical answers people give, oddly, depends on whether the question is asked in the native language or in a foreign tongue. The Economist reports, “A rather counter-intuitive one was reported in a paper published last month in PLOS ONE, a journal.... Read more

Up With Overconfidence

Last updated on: May 17, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In a piece at the New York Magazine site, Matthew Hutson reviews evidence that overconfidence increases the confidence that others place in you. He cites a Berkeley study from 2012 that showed “that overconfidence increases one’s status. Subjects who overestimated their abilities at group tasks were more respected and influential in the group. It turns out, we tend to (over)use confidence as a useful proxy for competence – if you speak firmly, it sounds like you know what you’re talking about.... Read more

Worthy God

Last updated on: May 17, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In a 2001 article in JSNT, Russell Morton analyzes the Jewish and Hebrew-Bible background for the scene in Revelation 4-5. But this does’t explain every detail. In particular, “the acclamation of ‘worthy’ is not found in the hymns of the Hebrew Bible” but is “a typical feature of Hellenistic/Roman hymns to a god, to the emperor or to some other human benefactor” (99). Morton elaborates: “John makes a contrast between the dignity of God and the claims of Hellenistic/Roman rulers,... Read more

Universal Praise

Last updated on: May 17, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Does everything always participate in a cosmic liturgy? Maybe. But that’s not the picture we get from Revelation 4-5. Instead, we get a progression. Initially, only the four living creatures worship (4:8), then the twenty-four elders (4:10), then both together (5:8), then myriads of angels (5:11), then everything created in heaven and earth (5:13). From what we can see in Revelation, the turning point is the appearance of the slain Lamb in heaven. Prior to His appearance, only the four... Read more

Three to Four

Last updated on: May 16, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The Lamb’s worthiness to take the book is triple (Revelation 5:9-10). He is worthy because: 1) He was slain 2) He purchased with His blood 3) He made the purchased-ones a kingdom and priests The second and third of these meritorious acts, though, move out into a four. He purchased a people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. And the declaration that Jesus made the purchased-ones a kingdom and priests is followed by the final clause of the song:... Read more

Identification for Incorporation

Last updated on: May 16, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Scot McKnight (A Community Called Atonement) sums up the atonement as “identification for incorporation” (107). Jesus identifies with us even to death so that He may incorporate us “in his destruction of death and the devil,” and into the perichoretic fellowship of the Triune God. That formulation enables McKnight to recognize the truth of various traditional theories of the atonement, while acknowledging their limits and accepting some of the criticisms offered in contemporary theology. On satisfaction, he writes, “Jesus’ identification... Read more

Pentecostal Judgment

Last updated on: May 16, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Scot McKnight (A Community Called Atonement, 75-6) observes that the prophecy of Joel 2 that is fulfilled at Pentecost is a prophecy of political catastrophe. Pentecost, he concludes is both justification – “God’s act of justifying and making His judgment clear” by the gift of the Spirit that creates a community where God’s will is done – and a “judgment on the unjust rulers of this age.” Based on Jesus’ insistence that the Spirit comes to “convict” the world (John... Read more